Tichu is a card game, played by pairs of two partners with the players of each team sitting opposite one another. During the game, the partners try to help each other score points and gain the lead. The game is played over several hands with the goal to be the first team to score a specific amount of points, predefined before it starts.

Tichu deck consists of 56 cards and four suits. The suits are Jade, Swords, Pagodas, and Stars, with each suit having 13 cards of increasing values starting from 2 to 10, J, Q, K, and A. There are also four special cards, the Dragon, the Phoenix, the Hound, and the Mah Jong.

Each player is dealt eight cards and may call "Grand Tichu". Grand Tichu is a 200-point bet that the player calling it, will be the first to get rid of his cards. Once players have decided whether to make this call or not, six more cards are dealt (the remaining cards in the deck) and players may no longer declare "Grand Tichu". Now, and at any time prior to playing his/her first card, a player may call "Tichu", a 100-point bet that he (not his partner) will be the first to get rid of his cards. The differences between Grand Tichu and Tichu are when they may be called, the number of cards you've seen, and the number of points involved.

After dealing all 56 cards to players (14 cards to each one), the exchanging phase begins, where all players must pass one card (face down) to each of the other players. That means that all players will pass three cards in total (one to each opponent and one to the partner) and also receive another three cards from the other players.

After the card exchange, the player with the special card "Mah Jong" leads the first trick. He/ She can play any valid combination and all other players can either pass or play a similar combination of higher value (the only exception to this rule are the "Bombs" that we'll discuss further on). A single card can thus only be beaten by a single card of higher value, a sequence of two pairs only by a sequence of two higher pairs, a sequence of seven cards only by a higher sequence of exactly seven cards, a full house only by a higher full house (in full houses the value of the trio is what counts). When all other players with cards on their hands pass, the player who played the last (highest) combination gathers in the trick and leads a new combination. If this player has no cards left, he h